The disclosure is directed to a method to synchronize control panels of a production system, in particular of a printing system.
A computer for a printing machine—in particular sheet-fed offset printing machine—is described in DE 297 20 991 U1, in which the printing machine has multiple computers which are connected with one another via a bus. At least one of the computers has a display and input device. This one computer is a portable computer that is connected with the printing machine using a radio interface and serves to control the printing machine.
An additional device for controlling a printing machine is described in DE 36 14 744 C2, in which an electronic control unit is designed to be portable. The signals between the portable electronic control unit and a stationary receiver are transmitted in encoded form.
US 2011/0046754 A1 describes a method and a device for generating a human-machine interface and for showing the interface at least at one end device. This may be implemented using web-based platforms, in particular in that web server and web browser may be used, as well as a hypertext transfer protocol. A server that generates the human-machine interface may be connected with multiple end devices, and the generated human-machine interface may be transferred to the multiple end devices that show this. The data transfer thereby occurs as a continuous data stream between the server and the end devices, or as an asynchronous data transfer, that is initiated by the server or one of the end devices.
Available under the trade name TeamViewer is a software with which a screen display of one computer may be transmitted to an additional computer so that all changes at this one computer may be viewed at the additional computer. This type of transmission or mirroring of the screen display is also possible at multiple computers. With this software, inputs may also be transmitted from one computer to the other computers. A corresponding program that controls the connection with the additional computers is to be installed at each computer that participates in such a common session. This software has proven very useful for conducting maintenance tasks and training. However, this is not suitable in order to exchange data with one another in a control system, since the complete control over the control system could hereby be passed to an arbitrary third computer, which is normally not allowed for safety and/or security reasons. In addition to this, specific program sections need to be installed at the respective computers, which is normally not desired in a control system. Such programs are therefore unsuitable for a production system with which individual devices of the production system are controlled.